Rohingya ordered by Myanmar officer to ‘fight for our faith’

RFA
By Kyaw Lwin Oo, Sann Maw Aung and Khet
Mar 2024.04.09 

Conscription among the stateless Muslim minority long-targeted for their religion is violent and widespread. 

Rohingya Muslims ride in the back of a junta military vehicle, March 9, 2024.
(Image from citizen journalist video)

Just before midnight on Feb. 25, Ali opened his door to see junta soldiers pointing guns at him. Myanmar’s military had been making its way through Rakhine state, as part of a newly launched forced conscription campaign and the young Rohingya man was their latest victim.  

Arakan Army’s gains enough to enable self-rule in Myanmar’s Rakhine state

RFA
A commentary by Zachary Abuza
2024.04.06 

Their strength will impact future negotiations over establishing a federal democracy and questions of citizenship. 

The Arakan Army, or AA, is continuing their sweep across Rakhine, furthering the military gains of the ethnic Three Brotherhood Alliance, of which it is a member, in Shan state. While the capture of nine towns, with a tenth in southern Chin state, is another humiliating defeat for the Burmese military, it also sets the scene for a very messy political discussion moving forward.

The West Is Returning To The Rohingya Issue In An Attempt To Divide & Rule This Part Of Asia

EESTi EEST!
By Andrew Korybko
aprill 5, 2024

Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia condemned the UK for calling an open session of the Security Council on Myanmar since “there are things that cannot be discussed in the ‘megaphone diplomacy’ mode” that the British insisted on. Thursday’s talks mostly focused on the situation in Rakhine State, which is where the Bangladeshi-originating Rohingya mostly resided prior to 2017’s conflict pushing most of them into that neighboring nation. Here are some background briefings:

The Rohingya under pressure: imprisoned, without citizenship, but forced to join the Burmese a

agenzia fides
Friday, 5 April 2024 

Sittwe (Agenzia Fides) - In order to replenish its ranks, decimated by combat losses, the Myanmar army is resorting to the forced recruitment of young men from the Rohingya people and sending them to the front in the fight against the Arakan Army, an ethnic militia that is resisting in Rakhine State, the Burmese state where the Rohingya, a discriminated and marginalized Muslim population in Myanmar, are traditionally based. As Rohingya organizations in the diaspora, including the Burmese Rohingya Organization UK and the Free Rohingya Coalition, report, “the Burmese regime has deliberately forcibly recruited the Rohingya because they are particularly vulnerable. They cannot escape due to movement restrictions imposed by the junta. Rakhine State is, so to speak, an open-air prison for the Rohingya. The junta considers them expendable. It is a cruel way to send the Rohingya to their deaths." At least a thousand young Rohingya men - around half of them internally displaced persons - have been forcibly recruited by the Burmese army in recent weeks. They were abducted from their homes, villages, markets and displaced persons camps and taken to army bases where they received military training. After two weeks of military training, the young men were armed and forced to wear Burmese military uniforms and sent to the front lines in Rakhine State. Non-governmental organizations fear that dozens of people have been killed, "although the exact number of victims is difficult to verify due to the news blackouts imposed by the regime in this region." Other internally displaced Rohingya who have returned to Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine state, after military training will be called to the front lines if necessary. In February last year, the Burmese regime announced that it would implement the 2010 law on compulsory military service. But in the case of the Rohingya, who were deprived of their citizenship by a 1982 law and thus have no protection or recognized rights, there would be no legal basis to impose compulsory military service on them. 

 

UN Shows Conflicting Approaches to Myanmar Crisis

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
John Sifton
Asia Advocacy Director
April 4, 2024 

The United Nations Security Council’s first open meeting on Myanmar since 2019, New York, April 4, 2024. © 2024 John Sifton/Human Rights Watch

Myanmar’s already abysmal human rights situation is getting worse.

That’s what senior United Nations officials told the UN Security Council on April 4, during a rare open meeting on Myanmar, its first since February 2019.

The council heard of a spiraling human rights and humanitarian catastrophe, with particularly worrisome abuses in Rakhine State. Conflict has “weakened transnational security” and instability has led to a crisis with “global implications,” officials said.

We must not allow Myanmar to become a forgotten crisis: UK statement at the UN Security Council

GOV.UK
From: Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office and Dame Barbara Woodward DCMG OBE Published4 April 2024

Statement by Ambassador Barbara Woodward at the UN Security Council meeting on Myanmar. 

Thank you President, and thank you ASG Khiari and Director Doughten for your insightful briefings.

Colleagues, as we’ve heard, it is now over three years since the Myanmar military overturned the democratically elected government, setting the country on a path of violence and humanitarian suffering.

Rohingya NGO urges UN to ensure peace for the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine

mizzima
March 30, 2024

The Myanmar Ethnic Rohingya Human Rights Organisation in Malaysia (MERHROM) issued a statement 29 March urging the UN Security Council (UNSC), the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), world leaders, and the international community to intervene immediately in order to restore peace and save the Rohingya, especially in Rakhine State.

UN ‘alarmed’ by reports of civilian casualties in Myanmar air attacks

Aljazeera
19 March 2024 

Continuing air raids in the restive country’s Rakhine state are reported to have killed dozens. 

The United Nations chief has expressed “alarm” at reports that the Myanmar military is bombing civilian areas.

Antonio Guterres called for calm late on Monday following reports that continuing air attacks on villages in the restive country’s Rakhine state have killed dozens.

‘Piles of corpses’ left after Myanmar junta attacks village

RFA
By RFA Burmese
2024.03.18 

An aerial attack left 20 people dead and 33 injured in a township under Arakan Army control.

A junta aerial bombardment killed and injured dozens in western Myanmar, residents told Radio Free Asia.

Most residents in Thar Dar, a predominantly Rohingya village in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, were sleeping when a fighter jet dropped a bomb around 1 a.m. Friday, a resident said.

Arakan Army seizes junta outposts in Minbya Town, Rakhine State

mizzima
February 24, 2024 

The Arakan Army (AA) captured three outposts that had been under the control of the junta’s No. 9 Command Training Depot in Kanni Village, Minbya Town, Rakhine State. on 21 February.

Rohingya Men in Myanmar Are Being Forcibly Recruited by The Junta’s Military

The Irrawaddy
Hein Htoo Zan
February 23, 2024

A IDP camp for Rohingya people near Rakhine State’s capital Sittwe. / The Irrawaddy

 

Myanmar’s military is forcibly recruiting Rohingya men from villages and camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Rakhine State and it is feared they will be used as human shields, activists and residents of the state warn.

A New Era is Dawning For the People of Myanmar’s Rakhine State

THE | DIPLOMAT
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing
February 13, 2024

After years of conflict and ethnic cleansing, recent military gains by the Arakan Army have opened up fresh possibilities for the region’s future. 

On February 8, the rebel Arakan Army (AA) seized Mrauk-U, the former capital of the Arakan kingdom in Rakhine State, western Myanmar, along with the towns of Minbya and Kyauktaw. In fact, since the resumption of war between the AA and the country’s military junta on November 13, the AA has now successfully taken over six cities in the state, as well as two cities in neighboring southern Chin state, while destroying at least seven navy vessels and a helicopter. These ongoing victories have invigorated the long-standing dreams of Rakhine nationalists for an independent Arakan.

Muslim father- son duo abducted, set their car on fire by ARSA members in Maungdaw

Narinjara News 

 By: Web Master
Date: 13 August 2023 

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a terrorist armed group, recently abducted a Muslim man with his son and later burned down their car in northern Maungdaw township of Rakhine State.

The abducted father and son are identified as U Saw Lean Mula and U Hla Win, who hail from Sapae Gone Muslim village in western Myanmar border areas.

Cox's Bazar, Rohingya delegation in Myanmar to consider repatriation

asianews

Sumon Corraya
05/08/2023

A group of 27 members visited several villages built in Maungdaw district, but to return to Myanmar they demanded security guarantees and citizenship. The pilot project, supported by Beijing, plans to involve at least 1,100 refugees. Previous attempts have failed due to fears of a resurgence of violence. 

Cox's Bazar (AsiaNews) - A 27-member delegation travelled to Burma's Rakhine State in recent days to assess the repatriation of the Rohingya from the Cox's Bazar refugee camp that is home to around one million of them, most of whom fled persecution by the army in 2017.

With China's support, Bangladesh and Myanmar are trying to implement a pilot project to begin repatriating the Muslim minority before the monsoon season, hoping that the Rohingya who have visited Rakhine will convince others to return.

Rohingya stand firm on citizenship after day-trip to Rakhine state

RFA
By Abdur Rahman for BenarNews and RFA Burmese
2023.05.08
Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

The Burmese junta invited refugees to see housing constructed for their return. 

Rohingya and Bangladesh officials observe temporary housing constructed in Rakhine state’s Maungdaw township constructed by the Myanmar government to repatriate the refugees, May 5, 2023.
Courtesy: members of the Rohingya delegation

Bangladesh-based Rohingya who were taken to Myanmar’s Rakhine state Friday to see preparations for refugee repatriation said they wouldn’t return without citizenship rights, recognition of their Rohingya identity, and a guarantee that they could resettle in their home villages.

Twenty Rohingya and seven Bangladeshi government officials traveled to Maungdaw township in northern Rakhine, where the Burmese junta had invited them to inspect preparations as part of a China-backed effort to repatriate a small portion of the 1 million Rohingya refugees sheltering in southeastern Bangladesh.

Arakan Army Seeks to Build ‘Inclusive’ Administration in Rakhine State

THE I DIPLOMAT
Kyaw Hsan Hlaing
August 31, 2021

The armed group’s decision to include Muslim Rohingya representatives in local administration marks a sharp break with a succession of central governments.

Seven months since the military coup in Myanmar, the political wing of the rebel Arakan Army (AA) has significantly expanded its administrative and judicial mechanisms across Rakhine State in western Myanmar, with hundreds of its personnel now effectively administering the region independently of the military junta that rules in Naypyidaw. The group is also attempting to involve the state’s entire population, including the Rohingya Muslims, in the governance of what it hopes will become an autonomous Rakhine State.

On April 11, 2020, the 11th anniversary of the formation of the AA, Gen. Maj. Twan Mrat Naing, the army’s commander-in-chief, outlined the concept of the “way of Rakhita,” which he described as “the struggle for national liberation and the restoration of Arakan’s sovereignty to the people of Arakan.” This refers to the restoration of the independent Arakan kingdom that ruled significant parts of western Myanmar until 1824, when it was conquered by the Burmese kingdom based in Mandalay.

Marking the Fourth Anniversary of the Ethnic Cleansing in Rakhine State

Press Statement 

U.S State Department

Ned Price, Department Spokesperson
August 24, 2021

Four years ago, Burma’s military launched a horrific ethnic cleansing against Rohingya in northern Rakhine State. The brutality of the military’s atrocities on that day shocked the conscience of the international community – but we recognize the Rohingya had already suffered decades of grave human rights abuses, and that many of those abuses continue today. The United States remembers the victims and recommits to pursuing and demanding accountability for those responsible for these atrocities and other human rights abuses, and seeking justice for victims. We recognize the need to address the root causes of this violence and hold perpetrators accountable to help prevent such atrocities from recurring.

Rakhine State – Southeast Asia’s Next Marawi?

THE I DIPLOMAT

By Jasminder Singh
April 15, 2021

Myanmar’s political crisis has created the conditions for a possible widening of the jihadi theater in Southeast Asia.

What has distinguished jihadist groups and their appeal from other anti-state non-state actors has been their ability to construct a paradigm and narrative that the “land” in which a struggle is taking place is the “Land of Allah” and, hence, that jihadists need to join them in the struggle for the cause of Allah and Islam. This was what drew thousands of jihadists to Afghanistan in the 1980s, to Iraq and Syria from 2003 to 2018, and in the Southeast Asian region, to Marawi in the Philippines from May to October 2017.

AA Chief Does Not Want Myanmar’s Strikes and Protests in Rakhine State

THE IRRAWADDY 

12 April 2021

The Arakan Army (AA) chief, Major General Tun Myat Naing, says he does not want Myanmar’s civil disobedience movement (CDM) and street protests spreading to Rakhine, saying they will disrupt the armed group’s attempt to secure greater autonomy.

In his Rakhine-language address on the 12th anniversary of the AA’s founding, Maj Gen Tun Myat Naing wrote: “We don’t want the CDM and street protests in Rakhine State. We have the ‘Way of Rakhita’. We have our goals. While we are taking concrete strides towards those goals, it is important not to get confused over other issues.”

Rakhine's Arakan Army joins other minorities in condemning junta

Dhaka Tribune
REUTERS
March 23rd, 2021

The group condemned the current actions by the Burmese Army and police calling it 'cruel' and 'unacceptable' 

The Arakan Army (AA), a major ethnic militia in Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state, on Tuesday joined other ethnic groups in condemning last month’s military coup and the ensuing violent crackdown on protesters.

While several other armed groups fighting long-running wars in Myanmar's borderlands have signalled their support for pro-democracy protests, the AA, which had agreed a ceasefire with the government ousted on February 1, had not commented publicly.